The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has launched a digital library with more than 30,000 files of “industry ephemera” from the VGHF’s physical collection. The library, which is launching in early access, includes things like “more than 1,500 full-text searchable out-of-print video game magazines, never-before-seen game development assets, artwork, promotional materials, and more gaming relics,” according to a press release.
In a blog post, the VGHF highlights things like documents from retired video game producer Mark Flitman, production materials from Myst developers Cyan, digitized CDs of press assets received by GamePro, and a collection of FromSoftware promotional materials. (Note that some of the links may not work; as I’ve been writing this story, the links have occasionally been broken.)
Library director Phil Salvador says in a video that this is just the “first wave of open access content” in the library and that VGHF will keep building the library “over the coming years.” I’d recommend watching this video to get an overview of the work involved to make things available; the details about scanning old video game magazines were particularly cool.
I really look forward to seeing what people discover from the library, but it will be hard to top my colleague Tristan Cooper’s great discovery of GamePro history regarding Garfield.
